second SYSTEMced fault in 10 months - WHY???

[levi1998]

well, i'm reloading win2k from scratch for the second time in less
than a year. The problem is the famous - Windows could not start
because the following file is missing or
corrupt:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEMced

Last time this happened the overwhelming number of replies said it was
because of the hard drive cache being enabled and the os not having
time to write the cache in the event of an improper shutdown. Since
then I have disabled the cache, upgraded the SP so the cache will stay
disabled and added a UPS. I have only had ONE accidental shutdown
and viola the corruption has happened again (no, it wasn't right after
the shutdown). The erd didn't fix it and the automated repair
overwrote so many files that I am back to square one, as in no SPs
installed, etc.

Any other possible causes?

Thought I had everything backed up but copying the backup system and
software files still didn't fix the problem.

Gotta love it.

Any suggestions, other than linux or the like, to prevent it in the
future?

 

[David Robbins]

can we assume you have read and checked these:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;269075
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;302829
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;275149

and have considered this as a fix:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;302594

 

[Scott Harding - MS MVP]

Bad Drives. Happens all the time. Hard to say the exact cause but twice in
one year is not incredibly out of the ordinary. You might consider using a
program like Ghost to make periodic images of your systems so in case of
failure you could reload the at least OS part extremely fast. IBM had a big
run of bad drives a couple years ago and there was actually a class action
lawsuit against them. I went through 8 drives before they fessed up and got
me some different ones. I was reloading every other month, needless to say
they got an earful from me but that is a another story